How We’re Greenlighting Films Through Producer Fund I
There's a massive gap in the family film market that most investors are missing.
While major studios chase billion-dollar blockbusters and indie producers flood the market with R-rated fare, we've identified an underserved audience with massive purchasing power: families seeking quality entertainment they can watch together.
This opportunity is why we launched Producer Fund I in 2024. But capturing this market requires more than just making "family-friendly" movies. It demands a disciplined framework for selecting projects that can deliver exceptional returns.
Today I’m sharing how we plan to greenlight films for the fund, which serves two purposes: to provide clarity for filmmakers on what we're looking for, and to show you, our investors, how we identify profitable opportunities.
Our greenlight process focuses on three key elements:
- What films we will consider
- What criteria the films need to have
- Why momentum matters more than the idea
What Films We Will Consider
While we do have a handful of projects in the queue to present to the investors and greenlight committee once the fund is raised, we will need to look outside our existing network to find the best projects available.
But what does that mean? Is any project up for consideration?
No!
There are constraints, and every investor and every producer should know what types of projects they’re looking for.
If we approached this without parameters, simply saying "we want to invest in movies," we'd create a scattershot portfolio with no focus or strategic advantage. That's a recipe for inconsistent returns.
Instead, we've developed a clear mandate that creates both market focus and a competitive advantage.
For Craftsman Films and Producer Fund I, we are looking to produce independent films in the $1-2.5M range that are family friendly, values-based, and have the potential to spark conversation and change people for good.
We have identified a huge market in producing and distributing films that parents want to take their kids to, that isn’t another PG animated movie-musical.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me a good Pixar movie, but if that’s the only option, it can get tiring for parents.
The other side of the gap is the slough of R-rated horror and thriller films, as well as PG-13 action movies that aren’t “safe” for younger kids, which means a family with an 8, 11, and 15 year old isn’t going to go see it.
This gap in the market creates a unique opportunity for investors: underserved audiences with purchasing power.
Our target demographic is parents in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who want a great film to watch with the family that then sparks conversation and progress in their lives.
There are plenty of movies from my childhood you could point to as examples, both indies and studio films. The Sandlot, Goonies, Hook, My Girl, Babe, Homeward Bound, Hocus Pocus, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Mighty Ducks. And, of course, Star Wars!
What these films share isn't just family-friendliness—they were cultural phenomena that generated tremendous ROI relative to their budgets. The Sandlot, made for approximately $7 million, made $34 million in theaters and has had sequels, TV shows, and plenty of other revenue streams over its lifetime. Goonies, produced for around $19 million, has generated hundreds of millions in revenue through various distribution channels.
Say what you will about the list there, but we don’t get many of those types of films anymore (except Star Wars…), but the films I remember and love from the 80s and 90s are some of the films my kids (11-14) will sit and watch any day of the week.
From an investment standpoint, this represents an opportunity: meeting an existing demand that major studios have largely abandoned.
So, if you’re reading this and are considering sending me your R-Rated horror-thriller script, please don’t. If that’s your only writing sample, please consider writing a short-story or something else that fits within these constraints before asking us to take a look.
What We’re Looking For In A Project
Once a project passes that first threshold, we then have two critical criteria we’re looking for:
- Is there leverage?
- Is there tension?
Leverage refers to the idea that there’s something about this project that makes it more valuable than similar projects. Is there an actor, director, or other key person attached that would cost someone else much more? Your cousin is a famous actor, your sister has a massive social media following, you have a producer with a long track record of success already attached, as examples.
Leverage is what allows us to create asymmetric returns, getting more value than we're paying for.
The last movie I produced, Faith of Angels, is a true story about a 10-year-old boy who was trapped in a mine in Utah for 5 days, and it took an entire community to find and rescue him. There was a lot of leverage in that film:
- We had the rights to make the movie (no one else can get them)
- The real-life participants of that event were all still alive and wanted to help
- We got a mine location for free because they were friends with the man who ultimately found the boy
- We were able to attract the best actors in Utah (during a strike) because of the writer-director and the story
- The story had national awareness when it happened in 1989
- We qualified and received the rural Utah tax incentive
See, lots of leverage! We were able to produce the film on a budget 1/3 the size of another team because of our connections, relationships, and experience. The leverage of the project made that possible.
This directly translates to better potential returns for our investors. Every dollar we save through leverage is a dollar that improves our profit margin.
Tension is the pull or the gravity that a project has. When you read a script or hear a story and you lean in because it resonates with you. Tension creates the feeling of “I have to make this movie”.
Tension is what makes audiences say "I have to see this movie!" Projects with tension have built-in audience appeal that reduces marketing costs and increases word-of-mouth potential.
Writers and directors understand this tension. They hear of or read or come up with an idea for a movie and they can’t stop until it’s written or made into a film. An early example of this was a fictional Disney board-room meeting about green-lighting the movie Maleficent. I read that “transcript”, immediately walked across the hall to my director/friend/business partner, and said, “We have to make this.”
We called our friend Eric who wrote the piece, he gave us the thumbs up, and then about a week later we had filmed and released the short. We had to make it, and so we did. Tension... release.
This frustrates a lot of filmmakers who want to send us submissions, because they don’t know how to calculate this ahead of time. And that’s because they can’t!
There’s no rubric or way to measure how much tension your project has, because that tension is going to be different for every single person who comes in contact with it. The goal, then, is to calculate less. Make something you’re proud of, something that you feel tension to make, and then use it as a magnet that attracts the people who also feel the tension to make it.
Execution Trumps Ideas Every Time
Once we have those two boxes checked, the last thing we are considering is the current momentum of the project. This could be seen as a subset of leverage, but it’s worth its own section here.
Take two projects. One is at the idea stage. It’s a killer script, the writer has a track record, but it’s very very early in the process. The other project has a finished script, an actor or two attached, a director, and some funding already lined up.
Which project has more momentum?
The second one, obviously. In today’s world of AI-generated content, coming up with an idea for a script is as easy as copy-pasting a prompt into your favorite LLM and generating 50 loglines. That’s not hard. There’s no craft in it, there’s no work that’s been done, and there’s no momentum. That’s a project that’s static.
The project that has had craft applied to it has momentum. It’s tangible, it’s moving forward, there’s energy driving it.
Momentum reduces risk. Projects already in motion have cleared early hurdles that often sink film investments before they even begin production.
Derek Sivers wrote about the difference between ideas and execution years ago, and I use it as a guide in these moments of decision. Some selects from his post:
Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions...
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas.
I’m not interested until I see their execution.
It’s harsh, tough feedback, but ideas are worthless, unless they are backed by execution. So if you want the best chance to get your movie made, make progress every day on your own with the resources you have. Inject the idea with the energy that comes from execution. Don't show me the idea, show me the execution.
What This Means For Investors
Our disciplined approach to project selection means several things for you as an investor:
- Market focus: We're targeting an underserved audience with purchasing power
- Leverage advantage: We prioritize projects where we can get more value than we pay for
- Built-in appeal: We create and sustain the tension that drives audience demand
- Reduced execution risk: We favor projects with momentum that have already overcome initial hurdles
This systematic approach helps us maximize the potential return on your investment while managing the inherent risks in film production.
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This is our plan for greenlighting films. At some point we’ll open up a submission portal for filmmakers to send us your project, but it will be limited to the name, the team, a logline and synopsis, the ability to upload a treatment (maybe), and for you to share the leverage and momentum the project has. This is the “minimum viable submission” for us to test the tension. We don’t need to read a script to know if the tension is there or not.
Once we feel that pull, we’ll reach out to take a meeting, get the script, and see if it makes sense to consider it further.
After that… well, that’s info for another post in the series. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future installments!
For investors interested in learning more about Producer Fund I and our approach to generating returns through independent film, please contact us directly.
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